Molecular Manufacturing

In fairness to all, nanotechnology is in early days. We are seeing a lot of exciting proof of principal type work.

We can make some predictions.

We need an engineering template idea similar to the integrated circuit to organize and use this knowledge. Otherwise we will be studying thousands of noncompatible dead ends. Right now we do not know if this is possible. This template system is likely to be three dimensional.

Our capabilities will swiftly surpass anything imagined by Mother Nature. This is important because Mother Nature has actually built out with a lot of constraints that is could not work around easily. We actually have the option of introducing exotic combinations that super perform.

In short, expect to be surprised and surprised and surprised.

This NRC report is attempting to establish a focus and support system within the community to ease the process. I think that we still need much more data and conferences to settle directions. Again this is early days and this process has likely decades to develop. Right now we want to avoid closing off any avenues.

Molecular Manufacturing:

The NRC study and its recommendations

byERIC DREXLERonJANUARY 7, 2010

Part 6 of a series prompted by the recent 50th anniversary of Feynman’s historic talk, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”. This is arguably the most important post of the series, or of this blog to date.

Surprisingly, this recommendation smacks of heresy in some circles, and thevery idea of examining the subjectmet strong opposition.

The process in outline: Congress voted to direct theU.S. National Research Council,the working arm of theU.S. National Academies,to conduct, as part of the lengthyTriennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative,what in the House version had been described as a “Study on molecular manufacturing…to determine the technical feasibility of the manufacture of materials and devices at the molecular scale”, and in response, the NRC convened a study committee that organized a workshop, examined the literature, deliberated, and reported their conclusions, recommending appropriate research directions for moving the field forward, including experimental research directed toward development of molecular manufacturing.

NRC studies are not haphazard processes, and the National Academies website describes itsprocedures in substantial detail.Because the NRC often advises the Federal government on politically charged questions, “Checks and balances are applied at every step in the study process to protect the integrity of the reports and to maintain public confidence in them.” These include independent scientific review of reports that are themselves the product of independent experts assembled with attention to potential conflicts of interest.

It’s worth taking a moment to compare the NRC to the three previous leading sources of information on molecular manufacturing: committed advocates, committed critics, and self-propagating mythologies. None of these is remotely comparable. Unless one has studied the topic closely and in technical detail, it seems reasonable to adopt the committee’s conclusions as a rough-draft version of reality, and to proceed from there.

Here are some excerpts that I think deserve special emphasis, followed by the concluding paragraph of the report:

…The technical arguments make use of accepted scientific knowledge but constitute a “theoretical analysis demonstrating the possibility of a class of as-yet unrealizable devices.”22

Construction of extended structures with three-dimensional covalent bonding may be easy to conceive and might be readily accomplished, but only by using tools that do not yet exist.25In other words, the tool structures and other components cannot yet be built, but they can be computationally modeled.

[... concluding paragraph:]

Although theoretical calculations can be made today, the eventually attainable range of chemical reaction cycles, error rates, speed of operation, and thermodynamic efficiencies of such bottom-up manufacturing systems cannot be reliably predicted at this time. Thus, the eventually attainable perfection and complexity of manufactured products, while they can be calculated in theory, cannot be predicted with confidence. Finally, the optimum research paths [to advanced systems] cannot be reliably predicted at this time. Research funding that is based on the ability of investigators to produce experimental demonstrations that link to abstract models and guide long-term vision is most appropriate to achieve this goal.

My summary in a nutshell:

The committee examined the concept of advanced molecular manufacturing, and found that the analysis of its physical principles is based on accepted scientific knowledge, and that it addresses the major technical questions. However, in the committee’s view, theoretical calculations are insufficient: Only experimental research can reliably answer the critical questions and move the technology toward implementation. Research in this direction deserves support.

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I should note that thetoneof the report is skeptical, emphasizing what the committee [correctly] sees as the unusual approach and the [resulting,methodologically inherent] incompleteness of the results. A quick skim could easily suggest a negative assessment. A closer reading, however, shows that points raised are in the end presented, not as errors, nor even as specific, concrete weaknesses in the analysis, but instead as work not yet done, motivating the development of a research program directed toward validating and achieving the proposed technological objectives.

The call for research

The report closes with a call for research on pathways toward molecular manufacturing, quoted above, and an earlier section outlines some appropriate objectives:

To bring this field forward, meaningful connections are needed between the relevant scientific communities. Examples include:

Delineating desirable research directions not already being pursued by the biochemistry community;

Defining and focusing on some basic experimental steps that are critical to advancing long-term goals; and

Outlining some “proof-of-principle” studies that, if successful, would provide knowledge or engineering demonstrations of key principles or components with immediate value.

The response and progress

The technology roadmap

Research directions toward molecular manufacturing have been charted in the subsequentTechnology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems,the result of a project led by the Battelle Memorial Institute, the manager of research at U.S. National Laboratories that include Pacific Northwest, Oak Ridge, and Brookhaven. These labs hosted several Roadmap workshops and provided many of the participating scientists and engineers; I served as the lead technical consultant for the project.

The Roadmap is responsive to the NRC request above, and recommends research that includes work along the lines I describe below.

Molecular engineering methodologies

The crucial research objective is the development of systematic experimental and design methodologies that enable the fabrication of large, multicomponent, atomically precise nanostructures by means of self-assembly. This research direction fits the NRC committee’s criteria: it is, by nature, strongly experimental, and in mimicking macromolecular structures and processes in biology, it holds promise for near-term biomedical applications.

Structural DNA nanotechnology

In the year the NRC report reached print, aNaturepaperreported a breakthrough-level development, “DNA origami”. This technology opened the door to systematic, atomically precise engineering on a scale of hundreds of nanometers and millions of atoms.

Why these developments are important

As is now well recognized, “existing biological systems for protein fabrication could be harnessed to produce nanoscale molecular machines with designed functions” (“Computational protein design promises to revolutionize protein engineering”). Further, as biological systems demonstrate, programmable molecular machine systems can be harnessed to build programmable molecular machine systems.

As I’ve discussed,this capability could be exploited to pursue a spiral of improvement in materials, components, and molecular machine systems.

The path ahead

This spiral of development, in which molecular tools are used to construct more capable next-generation molecular tools, could be exploited to develop products with expanding applications, falling cost, and increasing value.

As I discussed in“Making vs. Modeling: A paradox of progress in nanotechnology”,each generation of tools can be expected to enable fabrication processes and products that are more robust, more susceptible to computational simulation, and better suited to established systems engineering design methodologies. This indicates the potential for an accelerating pace of development toward a technology platform that can support the implementation of high-throughput atomically precise fabrication.

This path is being followed today, yet the level of support and organization, of mission and urgency, does not come close to matching its potential for solving long-term yet urgent problems.

Appropriate and inappropriate responses to the NRC report on molecular manufacturing

The evaluation of the feasibility of molecular manufacturing and recommendations for research form the concluding section of the body of the NRC’sTriennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative.In the three years since the publication of the NRC report, I have seen no document from a Federal-level source that acknowledges these conclusions, and, of course, none that offers a substantive response.

This is of concern, because the NRC report calls for a sharp break with past thinking. To put it bluntly, much of the opinion in general circulation about molecular manufacturing (both pro and con) is rubbish because it is based on mythology, and not on the scientific literature. The NRC report can be criticized on several points, but it isn’t rubbish.

Fulfilling the initial promise of nanotechnology

Atomically precise fabrication technologies exist today, andas I have noted,advanced atomically precise fabrication is the promise that initially defined the field of nanotechnology. I believe the record shows that advanced atomically precise fabrication is also the promise that got it funded.

Building on recent advances, strategically targeted research in atomically precise fabrication could draw on and contribute to fields across the spectrum of modern nanotechnologies, from materials to deviced, and could bring them together to elevate the technology platform for further advances. Ultimately, as the NRC report suggests, those advances could potentially deliver what was promised at the inception of the field.

Make no mistake: the path to high-throughput atomically precise manufacturing will not be short, and it will not be direct. It will be a multi-stage development process, andas I have discussed,the early steps differ greatly from the ultimate results in both their form and their potential applications.

Growing urgency

Today, the potential promise of high-throughput atomically precise manufacturing must be regarded as credible. As a consequence of its inherent productive capacity, it offers a credible potential solution to problems ofenergy production and climate change.The National Research Council of the U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine has called for the support of research explicitly directed toward the development of this technology. This has become urgent.

The strength and limitations of current research support

It is both laudable and problematic that the research I’ve reported above is chiefly funded by programs in biology and medicine. This support has enabled great progress, and I know from long discussion that researchers in these areas have ambitious visions for the future. There are, however, limits to what can be achieved while developing molecular engineering within the framework of biotechnology, much as there would have been if aeronautical engineering research had been developed as a field of ornithology.

The critical need today is not for new scientific results, but for an integrative approach to molecular systems engineering, directed toward strategic technology objectives. The science is ready. The institutions are not.

A word to readers:

The implications of the NRC report call for reconsidering views that have shaped policy in the research disciplines critical to progress toward molecular manufacturing, yet like many other NRC reports, it is virtually unknown. Directing other readers to what I have written here could help to remedy this problem.

(And a further note to readers who are bursting with frustration: Please don’t. It is counterproductive, and generates far more heat than light.)

Note: I say in the first paragraph that Congress voted for “…what in the House version had been described as a ‘Study on molecular manufacturing…to determine the technical feasibility of the manufacture of materials and devices at the molecular scale’” to reflect an oddity of the legislative history behind the study: After the House transmitted the bill to the Senate, a nanotechnology business association successfully lobbied to replace “molecular manufacturing”, thereby calling for a (puzzling) “Study on molecular self-assembly”.An uproar followed.In the end, the NRC did a study of molecular self-assembly, as directed in the final bill, but also responded to the request by the House for a study of molecular manufacturing. In the end, molecular manufacturing dominated the agenda of the workshop.[I corrected the main text and this description after reviewing the GPO documents, several hours after the initial posting.]

[Dec 8: Updated to add the paragraph beginning “I should note that thetoneof the report is skeptical...” I would expect this tone to strongly influence the impression left on casual readers, blunting the impact of what, in substance, amounts to a sharp rebuke to the conventional wisdom.]